Q&A Hero

Q: The newspaper’s editor is NOT responsible for managing the advertising, circulation, and production departments; other managers do that.

Q: What topic of a documentary series produced by Ken Burns drew more viewers to PBS than any other program in its history? A) The Cold War B) The Civil War C) Jazz D) World War II

Q: Bennett’s paper was one of the first to use the practice of “news beats” which were A) a “black mark” against a reporter who failed to beat the competition in reporting a story. B) a regular or recurring theme or topic that would periodically show up in news coverage. C) a subject or part of the city a reporter was assigned to cover for the sake of gathering news. D) a token reward and recognition to a reporter who got a story before competing papers did.

Q: James Gordon Bennett was a New York newspaper publisher who first assigned reporters to sports events on a regular basis in the 1830s.

Q: Which of the following is NOT a redundancy technique in advertising? A) barrages B) bunching C) positioning D) multimedia trailing

Q: Which of the following statements is an example of the third-person effect? A) “I worry that violence on TV is going to change the way I treat my kids.” B) “Violence on TV doesn’t have much of an effect on society one way or the other.” C) “Violence on TV makes most people more violent, but not me. I know it’s not real.” D) “My kids and I fight with each other more after we’ve played a lot of video games.”

Q: The publisher is at the top of a newspaper management chain and is either the owner of the paper or is appointed by the owner to head the paper.

Q: Michael Moore whose documentaries have such strong points of view that some critics called them “docu-ganda” produced all of the following EXCEPT A) Capitalism: A Love Story. B) Fahrenheit 9/11. C) Roger and Me. D) Who Shot Roger Rabbit?

Q: The first newsroom was organized by A) Edward Murrow. B) John Peter Zenger. C) James Gordon Bennett. D) Horace Greeley.

Q: Music is both a media unto itself and an important component of several other mass media.

Q: Targeting ads for specific consumer groups is called A) positioning. B) lowest common denominator. C) unique selling proposition. D) viral advertising.

Q: The Google Print Library Project would digitize and index all newspapers, magazines and books of the 20th Century.

Q: Originally only 2,000 Gutenberg Bibles were printed.

Q: When a PAC with 527 status pays for ads attacking a candidate’s opponent, the candidate can distance herself from the distasteful attack ads while continuing to benefit from them.

Q: Grokster started a project to digitize books for an online index.

Q: Books and other print publications immediately became plentiful after the printing press was created because of the plentiful supply of paper and ink.

Q: Newspaper circulation peaked in 2007.

Q: In the early days of television, documentaries had to be balanced and therefore usually remained neutral and avoided taking sides because A) advertisers wouldn’t sponsor programs that were biased or showed favoritism. B) censors reviewed and had to approve all programs before they aired. C) the Federal Communications Commission enforced its Fairness Doctrine. D) neutrality was anathema to traditional journalism standards.

Q: James Gordon Bennett A) started the first penny press. B) used newspapers to fight social ills that accompanied industrialization. C) organized the first newsroom and reporting staff. D) pioneered editorials.

Q: The first U.S. President to effectively use a campaign song was Bill Clinton.

Q: Who championed positioning? A) David Ogilvy B) Wayland Ayer C) Jack Trout D) Jim Vicary

Q: Another popular name for the overrated powerful effects theory is the A) unlimited effects theory. B) spiral of silence. C) two-step flow model. D) bullet model.

Q: During election years, PACs with 527 status cannot run any political ads before May 27, which is why they have “527 status.”

Q: James Gordon Bennett, an early Penny Press publisher, helped establish the view of news as we still know it by his emphasis on A) allowing his reporters to express their own views on the stories they reported. B) catchy headlines to attract readers’ attention and pull them into the stories. C) emphasizing the people and personalities behind the news.D) stressing speed and timeliness in gathering and reporting the news.

Q: Even political leaders recognize the power music can have and often incorporate it into their political campaigns.

Q: Which of the following advertising technique is also a lowest common denominator approach? A) unique selling proposition B) positioning C) stealth D) infomercial

Q: Early mass communication scholars wrongly assumed that A) people are active, not passive media users. B) people absorb messages like sponges. C) audiences are intelligent. D) people review media content critically.

Q: The growing quantity of printed materials fueled literacy and, slowly, a standardization in written languages.

Q: Ben Day launched the New York Sun in 1833, which was notable in newspaper history because it shifted the financial base from sales and subscriptions to advertising.

Q: The first news from another medium that was displaced and put out of business by television’s introduction of network newscasts was A)half-hour newscasts on radio networks. B) Life magazine. C) newsreels shown in movie theaters. D) the United Press International wire service.

Q: Movable metal type made the printing press an agent for mass communication.

Q: The penny press was so named because it cost just one cent to produce.

Q: The pioneer prime-time reality television show was A) The Bachelor. B) The Dating Game. C) The Man and the Challenge. D) Survivor.

Q: What factor is NOT used in determining newsworthiness of a story? A) proximity to audience B) cost to collect information C) prominence of people involved D) impact on society

Q: The Dixie Chicks were praised by conservatives after a member of the group criticized President Obama.

Q: Linking a celebrity’s name to a product is one method of A) bunching. B) positioning. C) branding. D) glitzing.

Q: The theory that sees the media as a kind of hypodermic needle, injecting concepts into its viewers, is essentially the same as approach called the A) third person effect theory. B) two-step flow model. C) magic bullet model. D) status conferral theory.

Q: A PAC that has obtained “527 status” from the IRS cannot give money directly to a candidate, but it can buy ads for or against a candidate to try to influence the election.

Q: An infringement is a violation of copyright.

Q: Brand-name advertising is losing ground to A) viral advertising. B) store brands. C) agency-produced advertising. D) redundancy techniques.

Q: What Yale psychologist studied World War II propaganda and developed a model of mass communication: who says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect? A) Walter Lippmann B) Harold Lasswell C) W.P. Davison D) Paul Lazarsfeld

Q: The term “PAC” originally stood for People Against Corruption, which now seems ironic in light of the ways they’re being used.

Q: The assignment of rights is the transfer of ownership interest in a piece of intellectual property.

Q: The theft of copyright-protected material for the purpose of making money is called copy- larceny.

Q: Johannes Gutenberg invented movable metal type in the mid-1800s.

Q: Industrialization, urbanization, and increasing literacy rates were among the factors that made the rise of mass media possible.

Q: One of the first sitcoms originally created for television instead of being adapted from radio was A) Amos and Andy. B) I Love Lucy. C) Our Miss Brooks.. D) The Jack Benny Program.

Q: Newsworthiness is usually determined by all of the following EXCEPT A) guidelines in the Associated Press Stylebook. B) subjective journalistic values. C) a feel for what the audience thinks is important. D) the prominence of the people involved in the story and its timeliness.

Q: Rap is music with intense bass, rhyming riffs, and often anti-establishment lyrics.

Q: Federal regulations to ensure a level playing field for all candidates for political office have no effect on newspapers and magazines which have a First Amendment guarantee of press freedom.

Q: Any theft of copyright-protected work is called copy-banditry.

Q: Mass production of the written word became possible with movable metal type.

Q: Social and economic changes in the United States in the 1830s gave birth to mass media that actually reached mass audiences.

Q: Steven Spielberg produced all of the following EXCEPT A) Close Encounters. B) Raiders of the Lost Ark. C) Star Trek – The Wrath of Khan. D) Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Q: When there are more potential news stories than there is time or space to report them, decisions about which ones will get reported are usually based on their A) accuracy. B) depth of coverage. C) first sentence. D) newsworthiness.

Q: Music can be a powerful force in societal issues.

Q: Who championed the concept of brand imaging when he said, “give your product a first class ticket through life?” A) Sam Walton B) David Ogilvy C) Jack Trout D) Donald Trump

Q: The idea that media have immediate, direct influence on individuals is known as A) limited effects theory. B) two-step flow model C) powerful effects theory. D) immediacy theory.

Q: PACs which originated as a legal way to get around restrictions on individual political campaign contributions can directly funnel money into a candidate’s political campaign.

Q: Federal regulations limit political advertising to less than 60 percent of a station’s total advertising time.

Q: The assignment of rights is just another way to describe the granting of permission to use copyrighted work.

Q: The media landscape evolves with the rise of new technology.

Q: The printing technology Gutenberg developed in the 15th century made mass media possible, but it took almost four centuries for them to emerge as industries.

Q: Steven Spielberg loves to use his movies to tell stories about all of the following EXCEPT A) coming of age and loss of innocence. B) ordinary characters meeting extraordinary beings or facing extraordinary circumstances. C) parent-child tensions in growing up. D) supernatural phenomena that threaten human existence.

Q: Conceptually, the fundamental notion underlying any definition of news is A) accuracy. B) balance. C) change. D) importance.

Q: Many musicologists have concluded that Jackie Brenston’s Rocket 88 began rock ‘n’ roll as a music genre.

Q: Which of the following is a successful brand name? A) Flashlight B) Croissant C) Latte D) Kleenex

Q: Walter Lippmann argued that we see the world as A) it really is with all its blemishes and warts. B) a conspiracy masterminded by media moguls. C) a distortion of reality based on our personal world view. D) pictures in our heads even of things we have not personally experienced personally.

Q: Mass communication is any technology-enabled process that permits long-distance messaging.

Q: A survey by the journal Nature in 2005 found that Wikipedia had four errors for every three found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but errors were rare in both places.

Q: The Blair Witch Project is an example of A) a blockbuster film that lost money. B) an independent film discovered at a film festival. C) a foreign movie that did well at the box office. D) a movie appealing to a narrow demographic niche.

Q: The best summary of the Boykoffs’ conclusions is that A) the news media were out of synch with the majority of scientists in their reporting of science. B) the news media were so committed to providing balanced reporting they unintentionally amplified the view of skeptics and gave them more credibility than they deserved. C) the newspapers down-played the critical nature of the situation to avoid creating a panic. D) the newspapers over-dramatized and sensationalized the situation to sell more papers.

Q: Sam Phillips discovered Elvis Presley.

Q: The advantages of advertising in video games include all of the following EXCEPT A) at $20,000 to $100,000 per message, the ads are usually very cost-effective. B) background billboard ads can be instantly changed during online game playing. C) they effectively reach females aged 13 to 35, a highly desired ad audience. D) with interactive coding, ads can be modified to fit the current player’s demographics.

Q: All of the various theories about the effects of mass media can be grouped into three categories that does NOT include A) cumulative effects theories. B) minimalist effects theories. C) passive effects theories. D) powerful effects theories.

Q: If someone wants to legally use the copyright-protected work of another, one way is to get permission.

Q: Current federal regulations require radio and television stations to provide equal opportunities for airtime to all candidates competing for any particular office.

Q: Copyright law protects all forms of intellectual property.

Q: The Internet and other computerized communication systems are so important that computer sabotage committed by another country is considered an act of war that warrants a military response from U.S. armed forces.

Q: Jimmy Wales created World Book Encyclopedia.